health club, we are graced with a dentist and a lawyer. You do not have to be a doctor or lawyer or prime minister to be creative, but you can be one of them and still have mental illness.
There is one possibility where those of us with mental illness can create. By working on ourselves to establish a personality so strong, we can go out in the mainstream of our communities and get a job. The reason for our work order day is to aid us in reaching this goal. To turn mental illness around is creative, to my way of thinking.
No, we are not Lord Byron, Vincent Van Gogh or Herman Melville, or Sylvia Plath or Virginia Woolf and Robert Lowell. All of these creators are thought by researchers to have suffered just as we do with mental illness. We are not famous. We are not even creative in the customary sense of the word. But we can (and some of us do) mold ourselves into an improved person. This may not seem creative to the outside world in the usual sense of the word. But to my way of thinking, it is
However, self-perceptions may not be ideal for understanding how disagreeable youth interact within close relationships, as these youth in many instances might not even know that they are acting in a disagreeable manner. Observations are useful for addressing this shortcoming and have been used to understand the enduring qualities of interaction-styles, particularly when trying to understand unique profiles across individuals. Further, understanding the interactional style in adolescence that lead to an enduring disagreeable personality-type has tremendous usefulness.
The current study utilized observational, multi-reporter data collected over a 10-year span to identify and track the development and relationships of disagreeable youth (see Figure 1 for conceptual overview). Observations of target youth and their friends at age 14 and 15 were used to assess early adolescent disagreeableness in terms of rudeness, lack of cooperation, and forcefulness. In order to track the relationship blindness of these disagreeable youth, reports from friends in middle adolescence and from romantic partners in
In early August, at a tiki bar in Washington, D.C., Erin Pedati told a group of friends that she’d been struggling with depression. They were good friends, and they responded with empathy and compassion, but the next day Ms. Pedati, 40, felt weird.
“Part of me was relieved, because it’s important to have these discussions,” she said. “But another part was like, ‘Oh my god, what did I say?’ You replay the conversation in your head and you’re like, ‘They haven’t replied to my text, did I tell them too much?’”
Instead of a hangover from too many Mai Tais — “which honestly would’ve been easier to treat,” she joked — Ms. Pedati was experiencing a “vulnerability hangover,” a term coined by Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, to describe the anxiety, shame and regret felt after divulging something personal.
And I learned that doing so regularly, once or several times a day, can be more or less instantly life changing. For me, deliberate muscle relaxation immediately reduces fatigue, stress and anxiety. It creates a kind of allover refreshed feeling that can be attained nearly anywhere and at any time. And it gets more effective the more I do it.
I have come to think of relaxation as a skill; the more I relax, the better I learn which parts of my body tend to become tense, what that tension feels like and how to unlock that tension with a quick flick of the mind.
Daydreaming is contagious. All traffic jams are a result of one person daydreaming, which spreads from car to car. “Do you want me to stab you in your lungs right here on this highway?” is a phrase closely associated with daydream pandemics, which typically occur when two lanes are merging near construction sites.
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What to Daydream:
“I want to daydream more, but I don’t know what to daydream about,” a lot of people probably say. For that reason, they keep rehashing the same old daydream scenarios:
THE LOTTERY You aren’t going to win the lottery. Stop fantasizing about the cars you’ll buy, the vacations you’ll take, the house you’ll build. Stop imagining quitting your job, the speech you’ll make while systematically destroying office property. You wouldn’t have the guts to do that even if you did win, which you most certainly will not. What you need to be doing is daydreaming about better ways to do your current job. If you weren’t spending so much time incorrectly daydreaming, you’d probably have earned that promotion by now.
SEXBy all means, have sexual fantasies. Sleep with better-looking people. Have intercourse in trees. But under no circumstances should you daydream about fornicating with nearby co-workers. Colleagues can tell when you’ve been daydreaming about having sex with them, and it’s an unprofessional way to spend company time. Some whiz kid is probably months away from inventing an app that can decipher whether you’re fantasizing about co-workers, or whether you’re just fantasizing about normal people who will never have sex with you.
CELEBRITIES Stop it already. Celebrity cameos are just the kind of infantile escapism that gives daydreaming a bad rap. “I bet George Clooney and Brad Pitt and I would have a great time on a cross-country road trip,” you might have daydreamed. Well, they wouldn’t. They would be totally freaked out that you’re sitting around daydreaming about driving them around the country when you’re supposed to be working.
HEROICS This is a tricky area of daydream ethics. Society needs everyday heroes, but most heroic daydreams are about scoring the winning touchdown, or hitting the home run. If the daydream is not sports-related, it’s terrorist-related — tackling the suicide bomber, defeating a terrorist cell in a shootout using your iPhone Call of Duty training. But no one daydreams about donating blood, or volunteering for Meals on Wheels. We’re a nation of extremes and it’s infected our daydreams.
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Efficient Daydreaming:
Daydreaming about being a better person, or positive things happening to loved ones, or flying through the office on a dragon that thinks one of your co-workers has stolen her dragon things — these are all dynamic mental breaks that can prepare you for an afternoon of cheerfully cleaning lint out of your keyboard. To become an efficient daydreamer, you needn’t dwell on quantum mechanics or solve complex algorithms; you simply need to blow off a little steam so you don’t get overstressed and have a nervous breakdown in front of your computer screen.
What type of fast food will the aliens prefer when they arrive and will it be the ultimate undoing of their civilization? If you were living in a world of all puppets, could you just assume you would be in charge because you’d be smarter and stronger and all fleshy? Or would you be ridiculed because of your minority non-puppet status? What if someone invents a machine that can read trees’ thoughts, and it turns out they spend the day laughing at us? These are some solid, intellectual quandaries for your next daydreaming stint.
Conclusion:
In closing, do not daydream about the problems in your life, the evil in the world, the troubles around the next bend. That is what real life is for. Instead, daydream about things that make you smile. No summer workday is complete without a grown person staring at the wall, just laughing.
Jon Methven is the author of the novel “This Is Your Captain Speaking.”
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WHY do I always feel guilty when I’m not doing anything? I mean, what’s the big deal? The cat sits around all day and never lifts a paw, yet I feel like a degenerate when I’m idle. Maybe the cat has a better analyst. Who knows. But me, I’m like a kid caught robbing the cookie jar.
My friend Sheila sits for hours devouring the soaps, while curtains are still packed away from her move six months ago. I get nervous if the 4:30 movie sounds inviting. And what about Ginger who, behind closed doors, daily from 2 to 3, hums her mantra, totally relaxes her body and soul, and emerges as if she’s had a 10-hour nap. I tried that once, but found it difficult writing my grocery list in the lotus position. Then there’s Pam, who takes one day off every other month, her ”sick and tired time,” she calls it, just to laze, read Redbook and sip tea. She unplugs the phone, puts on her robe and really gets into relaxing.
How I’d love to get into relaxing! What’s wrong with me? I don’t think I was born this way. Looking back, there were no great traumas in my childhood warranting this aversion to loafing. Just where along the way did I pick up the guilties? Was it the occasional prod by Mom that ”idle hands are the devil’s tools”? Or could it be because I always finished my chores faster and seemed to be sitting around all the time, and Mom would say, ”How can you just sit there while your sister does all the work?”
Maybe it’s because over the years, two bosses have trained me to keep busy. Even when I have a minute’s breather, there are always those folders with little notes attached like, ”for your spare time,” or ”when you have nothing to do,” or ”leisure
It’s a relief to be out on the island,” Ms. Snowman, 70, said. When she’s by herself, “the wheels stop spinning.” Her time alone is restorative.
But not everyone feels the same way about solitude, and for the last two years, the pandemic has forced some version of it upon us all. We’ve seen fewer friends and spent more time at home. Some people have found themselves feeling lonelier, particularly if they were already single or living alone.
As we enter a new phase of the pandemic that’s less “wipe down your groceries” and more “welp, I guess this is our new normal,” occasional periods of isolation may be something we just fold into our lives, like digital vaccination cards or having a dedicated drawer for masks.
Whether you’re hoping for more time alone or less these days, solitude is something you can learn to appreciate.
riendships are a powerful aid in maintaining both mental and physical health, as well as our happiness. Dee Marques explores why nurturing friends throughout our life is essential to our well-being – understand the science-backed power of friendship.
A few weeks ago I met a 97-year-old lady and asked h
GSo many of the digital devices that supposedly connect us are leaving many of us, myself included, feeling a bit lonely. Yes, it’s true that email, text messaging, and social media can be enjoyable and beneficial, and that they can spawn wonderful relationships. (I met the coauthor of my book on Twitter — really.) But although they may offer the illusion of doing so, online relationships simply cannot replace real, live, in-person connection. There’s just something special and irreplaceable about being physically present with another human being. And no, there’s not — and I can’t imagine there ever will be — an app for that.
The scientific literature offers plenty of insight on what close friends do for us.They give us confidence and bolster our sense of self, especially during tough times. They increase our sense of purpose and belonging. And they significantly influence some of our most important behaviors. Studies have found that if you have a friend who becomes obese you are 57 percent more likely to become obese; if you have a friend who quits smoking you become 36 percent less likely to start lighting
How can it be that he is never here? How can it be I do not hear that voice His presence haunts from his old ,battered chair
Though I have money and no need unbare I feel the grief , the affect of his choice. How can it be that he is never here?
What is the world when loss turns to despair. When every sheet by weeping is made moist? His presence haunts from his beloved chair
Now we learn the symbol of the hare Unpeaceful, hunted, jugged or potted roast How can it be that he was ever here?
Into the real we stand and long time stare We’re begging, blaming,badgered and then gassed His presence feints with ours in death’s own lairs
Now the world of man has long surpassed The time we could blame God for what we‘ve missed How can it be that He is never here? His absence haunts , symbolic , suffered, real
The power of John Donne’s words nearly killed a man.
It was the spring of 1623, on the morning of Ascension Day, and Donne, long a struggling poet, had finally secured for himself celebrity, fortune and a captive audience. He had been appointed dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral two years before. He was 51, slim and amply bearded, and his preaching was famous across the whole of London. His congregation — merchants, aristocrats, actors in elaborate ruffs, the whole of the city’s elite — came to his sermons. Some carried paper and ink to write down his finest passages and take them home to relish and dissect them. Donne often wept in the pulpit, in joy and in sorrow, and his audience would weep with him.
That morning he was not preaching in his own church but
Wrapped in your smile,I saw the golden light As if a hidden world our love revealed . Our spirits touched, our sorrows pushed to flight
In that space, our worries did not bite The trees were shelter, losses were each healed Wrapped in your holy smile,I saw the light
Do you learn there is a second sight From heart and soul , the golden bells shall peal Where spirits touch ,where sorrows quickly fly
And who but you would see my inner plight Would know the false from what is right and real Wrapped in your smile,I felt warm golden light
No army with its metal and its might Can win the final war , love conquers steel As spirits touch ,as sorrows say goodbye
I know it’s hard to learn what others feel And not draw back from grief, from loss revealed Wrapped in your holy smile ,O golden light Our spirits touch, our eyes weep their delight
Like children’s gleaming tears in a bright sun
That can be dried respectful of the source
The points of light on holly leaves each shone
The pink horse chesnuts’ flowering has begun
May flows on to June as rivers course As children’s gleaming tears drop in the sun
Nothing human should be broken,shunned
Yet evil screams till its sharp voice is hoarse The points of light on holly leaves still shine
When we learn of genocide , it stuns
I was unborn, did not know of such force As children’s greying tears dropped under sun
Each child is God, yet such vile acts are done
Anne Frank ‘s haunting memories now cursed The points of light on holly leaves will wane
Where did our evil start,what makes it worse?
Unheld and hungry baby needing breast? Like children’s golden tears in a black sun The points of shame, the prickling leaves may win
Enraptured by your smile,I lost my soul
It joined with yours to make a presence whole
A wall of light curved round , enchanting me
Gave me comfort, gave me history
For after such illusions ,we are changed
Our soul and heart and body rearranged
In the memory, we image bliss
To comfort , showing nothing is amiss
Afterwards we wonder was it real
That golden light such comfort made us feel
Vivid is the symbol of delight
Dreams may use this symbol in the night
To lose ourself will fill our vacant mind
Like holy water cures the one who’s blind
The impatience of a hunter, keen,intent Will miss small movements at the edge of sight Will miss the sacred spirit’s new descent
Relaxing when in danger,insolent, Will throw a wider beam of golden light Curb impatience, excess of intent
Slowness is a sign we can present That’s enough for heart to speak to heart We see the holy spirit’s new descent
Can we from our eagerness dissent Lean back, let the other play their part Curb impatience, excessee of intent?
For my narrow vision,I repent How I’ve missed the whole with graphs and charts Now I see the holy spirit’s spent
Scanning with a wider gaze unvites Calmer ways of living with less spite, The impatience of a hunter, keen,intent Will miss the gold of spirit’s new descent
